It was May of 2002 when teacher Pamela Diehl-Moore stood before a judge in Bergen County expecting to receive a prison term for having sex with a 13-year-old male student in her home.

She admitted the crime, and agreed to serve at least three years. But Judge Bruce Gaeta had a different idea. He threw out the plea and sentenced her to probation.

“I really don’t see the harm that was done here,” he said. “It’s just something between two people that clicked beyond the teacher-student relationship. ... Maybe it was a way for him, once this happened, to satisfy his sexual needs.”

The storm that followed earned Gaeta a demotion. And a higher court later reversed him, reinstating the three-year prison sentence.

But a fresh case in Essex County is raising concerns that a double-standard still exists when it comes to sex with minors.

The defendant is Erica DePalo, a teacher in West Orange who admitted having sex with a 15-year-old male honors student in her Montclair apartment. In a plea deal agreed to by the Essex County Prosecutors Office last week, she will serve no time behind bars.

New Jersey law makes no distinction between girls and boys in cases like these. But anyone who is remotely honest concedes that our culture does indeed make a distinction, and that can spill over into the courtroom.

Full disclosure: I have a son and a daughter, both teens, and I make a distinction myself. I’m not proud of that fact, but it comes from some deep reptilian portion of my brain that is not subject to logic.

Yes, I would be furious if a female teacher had sex with my son at age 15, and I’d demand prison time. But if a male teacher had sex with my daughter at age 15, the police might need to analyze his dental records to identify the body.

Does that make me a sexist pig? I called one of the state’s leading feminists, Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), to come clean about my bigotry and face the music. I was relieved to learn that part of her brain is reptilian as well.

“I raised a son and a daughter a year apart, and when I think back, I felt the same way you confessed that you feel,” she said.

The plea bargain in Essex has divided West Orange. Superintendent James O’Neill posted a message on the district’s website criticizing the leniency, which he believes sends a horrific message to other teachers facing this temptation.

“Some are happy about that statement, and some are not,” he said. “This isn’t an easy right or wrong.”

Like many districts, West Orange trains teachers to respect boundaries. And in a day when Face­book and Twitter open up easy channels for sexual overtures, that task is harder than ever.

“We talk constantly now about appropriate and inappropriate touch, and about not being alone with the kids,” O’Neill says. “This is something we deal with every day.”

In this case, the boy and his family agreed to the plea. But does that mean the damage was not severe? Or does it mean the boy is so traumatized he wants to avoid testifying in public? Prosecutors can’t say because this is an open case.

Did they offer this plea because they thought they might lose in court? Again, they cannot say. But it can be harder to win a case like this, when the defendant is a woman and the victim a teenage boy.

“Sometimes jurors ask, ‘Is it really that big a deal,’ ” says Robert Laurino, the first assistant prosecutor in Essex County and a specialist in sex crimes.

Another difference: Women who have sex with boys are more likely to think of themselves as involved in a romantic relationship, not a purely sexual tryst, according to Michele Galietta, an expert on sex crimes who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“A lot of women see themselves as in love with the person,” she says.
Little research has been done comparing the damage done to boys and girls who are victims of sex crimes, she said. But prosecutors and judges can legitimately press for more severe penalties in cases where the damage is worse.

So harsher treatment of male offenders might be justified if a girl victim is scorned as a slut, while a boy victim is considered a stud. In that case, sexism in the culture may have a legitimate place in the courtroom.

Was this case mishandled? Is DePalo getting off too easy? The truth is it’s impossible to know, given the secrecy around the case. She will lose her job and her teaching license under this plea, and will be forever a sex offender under Megan’s Law.

But it is hard to believe that she would be walking the Earth as free person if she were a man and the victim were a girl. The reptilian part of our culture would not allow it.

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or (973) 392-5728. Follow him on Twitter at @tomamoran.